Will-o'-the-Wisp
by kurgaya
Summary: Post-Winter War - He doesn't need help. There's nothing wrong with him bar having his soul torn to pieces, and not one single person has expressed an ounce of concern over that fact. He's fine.


**Notes**: Written for my 'loss of voice' prompt for the **hurt/comfort bingo** on livejournal.

**WARNING**: This is more hurt than comfort. I'm **warning for 'depression'** to be safe because Ichigo's a sad bundle of feels here and though I cannot claim to be knowledgeable in the area, his behaviour might reflect some early symptoms of clinical depression.

* * *

**Will-o'-the-Wisp**

* * *

He passes the first week under his duvet. The mountain of pillows, blankets, sheets, and quilts he has hoarded from every cupboard and closest in the house are insufficient in their offering of the warmth he has lost from the furnace of his soul. His once golden hair, radiant with the glow of a thousand suns, fades in the darkness of his lonely cocoon. The fire that once burned inside of his body is extinguished now. It cannot even light a candle despite the abundant spillage of oily emotions in his gut – anger, resentment, grief, and desperation – that have fuelled his wildfire in the past. There is no trigger, not anymore. There is nothing to hold onto, reach towards, grasp for. The shadows of his soul stir and boil as the hours slink into days – they are grotesque, overwhelming, and so very restrained at the heart of his being. _Before_ they had raged free, answering his wilful call whenever he needed them. Now they are little more than an ocean dead of sentience, left to bask in the dwindling remnants of his power as it trickles away.

Zangetsu has no voice.

Ichigo buries himself in the suffocating weight of the burdens he has lost and wishes for them back. He fears crawling from the burrow of his bed will devastate his fragile bubble of hope and desires with the cold truth of reality – his humanness; his uselessness. He is brave and courageous and strong, but he is not wholly resilient to the pressures (_the lack of pressures!_) that his new life will thrust upon him. Without action and chaos and the firm, steady, _proud_ voice of his zanpakuto in his ear, how will Ichigo be able to say that his existence means anything anymore? Is all he has been reduced to a waiting man, maundering the earth for the rest of his life to begin, fraught to hear the voices of his ageless friends and soul again?

Is death all he has left to look forward to?

He is fifteen. (He is old). He should not be dwelling on such thoughts. His family, his friends, and the vast world parallel to theirs had needed him, and he was happy – _willing_ – to offer up his power. Perhaps it had been naïve of him to think the consequences would be slim – for their side, not Aizen's. Death had touched the battlefield, but scarcely had it stained Ichigo's hands. There will never be a moment where he is not grateful for this.

There will never be a moment where he doesn't wish for a different end; one plentiful with the the freedom to come and go as he pleases and to merge both sides of his life together into an existence of concord and greatness. He could have been _Ichigo Kurosaki_, an aspiring shinigami and a dutiful student to the mechanisms of his lulled, human life. Now he is just Ichigo Kurosaki, aspiring to solitude and victim to the eighty-year plague of the natural world.

It sounds tragic, even in his head.

He is pathetic.

…Lonely.

Zangetsu's stronghold presence had been taken for granted, and Ichigo regrets that now, more than anything – more than throwing his friends into a world of war and fear and then dragging them out again, not quite whole and fractured in places. They, at least, can still consider themselves mostly normal. Ichigo is not normal. He had known that from the second Rukia's zanpakuto had pierced his chest, but his natural inclinations to the shinigami world and those that inhabited it had been a rather generous clue. In Soul Society, he had belonged. With Zangetsu in his mind, guarding his thoughts and wants and needs, guiding his hands and head to victory, Ichigo had been complete.

What is he now?

Yuzu bustles around downstairs, preparing dinner. Judging by the groans and shrieks that bounce through the floor, it sounds as if she has secured Karin into assisting her. Yet there is a lack of delighted, young laughter down in the reality of his life, and Ichigo knows he only has himself to blame. He is not ready to face his sisters, his father, his friends, or even his own flaxen exhaustion in the bathroom mirror; gazing upon their relief will be a dagger to the heart.

They are happy. They are _alive_.

Ichigo does not think he is.

Hiding himself away is the best option. No, it's a temporary option. His room will be sick of him soon, and Yuzu will need the blankets for when the nights grow cold. It has never been in his nature to shield away from the challenges he has to face. He is headstrong, determined, and lucky enough to launch his stubbornness into ridiculous situations and triumph over them. The life Rukia had opened for him was one example, and Ichigo hadn't backed down from that for even a second. Thus one would consider that it would make sense for his ability to cope to successfully cover the reverse of that world – the explosion into normality… the gradual degeneration into a slow and tired ruin…

The way his family tiptoe around him on shattered shoes of glass suggests Ichigo isn't fooling anybody.

The teenager sighs into the duvet, wrinkling his nose at the stagnancy of his breath. Maybe he should trek the ten foot into the bathroom, dragging along the pleats of the blanket, stained with his misery. Yuzu will be happy if he manages to have dinner at the table today, at any least, and surely that's something worth crawling out of his hole for?

(When was the last time he showered anyway?)

A full minute passes in silence. It takes that long for Ichigo to realise he's waiting for a cynical response from his inner hollow, yapping about his _ineptness_ and disgruntled about his _teenage habits_.

"Great," he mutters, as if talking aloud will fill the void that the course of ripping away two of the fundamental parts of his soul has condemned him with. "Just great."

He even misses his _hollow_.

And since there's nobody around to inform him if this is a good thing or not, Ichigo slides out of bed. Well, he rolls out of bed. Tumbles. Almost strangles himself on the sheets.

He _gets out_ and that's enough for now.

The voices of his family chatting downstairs cease abruptly at the crack of his knees and elbows against the floor. Ichigo panics for the half second it takes for the conversation to start up again – albeit a little strained – but he reasons it's the _good kind of panic_ as he stumbles across the room and collapses into the bathroom, the furthest he has moved in hours. If he sets the shower on a higher power than normal just to drown out the sound of his family's concern, then nobody needs to know.

(Not that anyone will know – he's alone in his head now).

He's a terrible twenty minutes late for dinner, but Yuzu smiles when he meanders in with his hair sopping wet and bruises smeared under his eyes like a panda, so Ichigo doesn't feel entirely like an arsehole. That doesn't mean to say he isn't one, but he takes what he can get; including his family's antics. Isshin blubbers and cries and wails at his wife's poster, and Karin spends half the meal glancing at Ichigo with the permanent Kurosaki frown, but it feels so _almost normal_ that Ichigo doesn't comprehend that he sits through an entire meal for the first time in a week until Yuzu takes his plate and asks tentatively if he wants a coffee – tea – _anything_ else with the puppy-dog expression of hers.

He thinks of the sake that Zangetsu often drinks (from _wherever_ he gets it from – like, really, _where_ does he find it? It brings up so many questions) but the lack of amused murmuring in the back of his mind reminds him that such a thing isn't feasible anymore.

_Tea_, he says instead. He adds _please_ and _sorry_ on the end when he can't find the morsel of energy it would take to lift his lazy arse up and put the kettle on. The shine of his sister's smile suggests she doesn't mind, so some of the guilt over his behaviour ebbs away. Though he wants to justify his actions to her – because she's his _little sister _and she deserves it– explaining the difficulty of getting out of bed and actually having some form of personal hygiene is not a point he feels valid enough to use.

Maybe he should start a tick-list, crossing off all the excuses he has used before. (Or maybe he should make one for Yuzu, so _she_ can tick off the ones she feels up to subjecting herself to).

He wonders if _I miss the voices in my head_ is an acceptable answer to her silent question as she places the mug down in front of him. Karin mumbles something more proficient as she stirs in a spoonful of sugar to her own drink, so Ichigo reasons it's probably best to play it safe and not say anything. Worrying his family over a psychotic suggestion isn't exactly a priority right now (despite the girls now being (somewhat) aware of Soul Society's existence and the implications that piece of knowledge has for their lives), and it's not even like talking to Zangetsu and his hollow can be classed as a schizophrenic episode or the like – in shinigami terms anyway. (He's not sure how human doctors would react to the truth; one reason why he's not inclined to share it).

Isshin is gone when Ichigo pulls himself back into the kitchen. Where their father has disappeared to is beyond him, but the teenager finds he cannot really bring himself to care as he nurses the mug, wincing as the ceramic scalds his hands. They do need to talk – Isshin and he – about stuff. Painful stuff. Stuff that should have been aired between them years ago.

(They've got plenty of time now, haven't they?)

As Yuzu moves opposite him, Ichigo catches a glimpse of his mother's portrait on the wall. She's smiling, as she has always done, as he will always remember she does, and he fights the urge to drop his gaze to the table. Would things have been different if she hadn't died? Perhaps their family would be more held together. Perhaps he would be more held together.

(Had she even been aware that her husband was an ex-shinigami anyway? How would that have even come up in a casual conversation? 'Hey Masaki, just to let you know that when our son is born he's going to be half-shinigami and probably a powerhouse – hope you don't mind? Thanks sweetie' – right. No. Somehow he cannot see that happening).

(Great. Another question to ask his father).

(There's a pattern developing here).

His tea goes cold before he can enjoy it, but Ichigo makes himself drink it all. It's powdery and disgusting in his mouth, but he hides a cringe. If he tries hard enough he can pretend the dark hair opposite him belongs to Zangetsu and not the pre-adolescent raven of his sister. Karin's going to be a heart-breaker when she grows up; silver and blue and titanium curves. Ichigo's not – he's going to be –

Well. He isn't sure what he's going to be.

(Alone?)

His bed certainty agrees when he crawls back into it.

* * *

The next day isn't much better. His stomach actually manages to ask for breakfast with a voice loud enough to rumble through the shadowy tangle of his dreams, and since it's the only part of his body that's currently talking to him Ichigo attends to its plea. It is, however, just past four o'clock in the morning when he enters the kitchen, so nobody else is up. Neither is he, as it turns out, because there's a moment of blankness between opening the fridge and dozing off with his cheek pressed against the milk shelf. Miraculously, he remains standing, propped up and blinded by the white of the fridge lights attempting to assess his intentions, and he knows he looks absolutely ridiculous. The milk doesn't say anything about his behaviour, but the clock ticks in question. Peeling himself away from the chill, Ichigo grumbles and knocks the appliance shut. The door bounces off of his head with a thunderous _crack_ and swings open again. Harder punches are needed to knock him senseless, but stars still flash across his eyes for a second in regret.

"_Fucker_!" he roars.

He doesn't kick the fridge, but it's a close thing.

The milk carton is dumped on the counter and left there till morning. Ichigo knows because he sits at the table and watches it until sunrise, his fiery glare accusing it of all the wrong-doings in his life. (It's easier to blame an inanimate object, at any least). The stare is only broken by the occasional glance into his cereal bowl to satisfy his hunger.

Isshin is called in for an emergency at local hospital at just shy of an acceptable time to wake. He smiles at Ichigo in his usual rushed manner before bolting out of the door with the excuse on his tongue. Ichigo hadn't even known that his father was offering his time at the hospital before that moment, but he supposes it makes sense since he's a fully qualified doctor and helping people is the Kurosaki norm. Plus, it gives Isshin a reason to get out of the house. Ichigo knows he would go stir crazy if he worked ten foot away from his living room every day.

As the door clicks shut behind the doctor, a tiny thought in the back of the teenager's mind questions why Isshin isn't rushing to help _him_, but Ichigo squashes it with his pride.

He doesn't need help. There's nothing wrong with him bar having his soul torn to pieces, and not one single person has expressed an ounce of concern over that fact.

A teacup shatters in the process of washing up the dishes.

Ichigo's fine.

* * *

Inoue rings just after lunch. Karin answers the phone and lifts her eyebrows suggestively in response to the happy chime on the other end of the line, but Ichigo warns off her thoughts with a gruff mumble as he swipes the phone from her. He's not a complete imbecile. He'd have to be blind, deaf, and stupid not to notice Inoue's affection for him, and while it is somewhat flattering to be on the receiving end of her regard (he's a teenager, _come on_), all he truly ever feels is a rush of guilt and awkwardness at her smile.

She's lovely. He's _really_ not.

Yet she's never said anything to him. Her girly shyness probably has a part to play in this – and that's what _everyone_ says – but Ichigo knows there's more to it than that. Inoue is not only extremely perceptive to the moods of others, but they're friends – she knows how he thinks. She knows he's not interested in dating her.

(Hence, the guilt. She deserves to be happy).

They talk about nothing in particular. A passing comment is made about how she is faring from the war, but that is the extent of their conversation on their time in Soul Society. Ichigo nearly inquires about Rukia and Renji and Kisuke and Tōshirō and _everyone_, but as the words prepare to leave his lips he realises he doesn't want to know if they've been in contact with her (instead of him), so he stops himself.

He replaces the question with an offhand comment about school and spends the next half an hour listening to her ramble on about all of the homework and assignments they need to catch up on. A moment of peace is found in her carefree babble; he's relieved to have a voice in his ear.

It's all fine until she timidly asks if he thinks her becoming a doctor is a good idea – _or maybe a midwife! Can you imagine that? I know it wouldn't be the same as Sōten Kisshun but I can help people in other ways, can't I?_ – and it takes his full concentration not to throw the phone across the living room.

"Eh, yeah, sure Inoue-san," is his hasty reply.

Then he hangs up.

He apologises to the low sound of the line, dead in his hands.

The silence in his head hurts a bit, but Inoue probably won't comment on his behaviour the next time they talk to each other.

That makes him feel that little bit more of a dick.

* * *

He spends the evening on the roof. It's _fucking freezing_ but he can watch the clouds drift past as they had in his inner world, so he doesn't complain.

(His inner world had been weird – _is_ weird. Would it be the same when Zangetsu returns to him?)

The only reason he's not hypothermic when he wakes up after an unexpected nap is because someone has buried him under the duvet and blankets from his bed. There's even a cup of hot chocolate sitting next to his head, the steam still wafting into the chilly air with an inviting aroma. The scene screams of Yuzu's influence, but there's no way she would have been able to climb onto the roof like he had, so his dad must have been involved.

Now it just might be the hot chocolate, but Ichigo feels a little warmer at that thought. His family's presence isn't the same as Zangetsu's, but he contemplates that it might be enough to fill in part of the giant hole gaping open in his chest.

He kind of hopes it will be. It would be nice.

Less lonely, at any rate.

(He didn't realise quite how lonely he would be).

Sleep consumes him again, but this time it's a fleeting slumber of ice-cold skin and wide, empty eyes. It's not Aizen's defeated gaze that stares back at him, but Ulquiorra's as he disintegrates into the dust of Hueco Mundo. Ichigo still cannot quite piece together the fragments of his hollow's power to form a coherent memory of what had happened during that fight, but the extent of the Espada's injuries told enough of the story. Ulquiorra hadn't just been killed – he'd been torn apart. Distancing himself from the reality of what he had done is harder than Ichigo thought it would be. During the remainder of the Winter War, he had been too busy fighting to stay alive to give much thought to the destruction of the Fourth Espada. Now, with nothing ample enough to distract him from his thoughts, Ichigo is haunted by his actions.

Murderous, inhuman spirit of an evil army or not, Ichigo had killed him.

Slaughtered him.

He's not proud of that.

(Is Zangetsu?)

He's not sure he wants to know.

"How did you manage it?" Ichigo blurts to his father an hour or so later after realising that – yes, Isshin was in fact the one to bring him blankets and hot chocolate when the gruff old man returns to the roof to drag his son inside. They're sat side-by-side now, Ichigo's legs hanging off the edge of the tiles, and Isshin's hands flexing instinctively to grasp the blanket to stop him from falling off. It's a silly motion, Ichigo thinks, because he's capable of landing on his own two feet. Then he remembers that his body is human and doing so would likely result in numerous broken bones and bruises, and he corrects his previous thought with a grudging sigh.

He tries not to pay attention to his father's protectiveness after that. It's a sore reminder of his new frailness; one he has never wanted to associate himself with. Undoubtedly, Isshin means well, but it still hurts to think a one-story fall is enough to hospitalise him.

(He's fallen from a lot higher than that before).

"Manage what?" asks the dark haired Kurosaki, though the lack of his usual cheerfulness suggests he probably has an inkling as to what Ichigo is about to say. They're a family that wears their hearts on their sleeves.

Ichigo shrugs. He doesn't have any hot chocolate left, which is a shame. "You know," he continues, wondering why his mouth is still moving and words are still pouring out. "How did you manage – _this_?"

'This' could mean lots of things. To clarify, the bitter teenager waves the mug in the general direction of his father. It's not a particularly helpful action, but Isshin's lips flatten instead of quirking upwards; an aged solemn settles on his face.

"I lost my powers for your mother," he states simply, a distant tone of affection – not regret – threaded in his words. "She was – a wildfire. Completely unstoppable."

He laughs lightly. Ichigo doesn't return the amusement.

"She knew that you were a – shinigami?" he asks, hesitating over the word. It's a declaration on his tongue that he feels awkward using – his father, a _shinigami captain_.

"Yeah," says Isshin, but while he sounds entertained at whatever memory he is recollecting, his demeanour shutters as the winter air slices across his face. "…Christ, Ichigo, I have a lot I need to tell you."

Part of Ichigo's mind screams _tell me now_. The other forces him to say, "You don't have to," because he's a considerate idiot and he's not entirely sure he's ready to know anyway. He can already tell that the can of worms waiting to blow between them is going to be full of vipers.

Stark relief passes across Isshin's face. The rush of anger Ichigo feels at the sight of it is mostly squashed by the guilt that quickly follows it.

_Coward_, Ichigo thinks, as he lets his father thump him on the shoulder and drag him inside to make another cup of hot chocolate as a conversation substitute.

He could be referring to either of them though.

* * *

When the next week tumbles about, somehow he succeeds in traversing the path to school and actually staying there for the entire day.

The frequent frowns and concerned stares from his friends imply that they consider this as big an achievement as Ichigo thinks it is, which says a lot about how he must look as he flops over his desk and nearly smacks his head against the window. At first, he thinks they're probably going to do the wise thing and give him a wide berth – tiptoeing around him like everybody else – but then Chad settles at the desk behind him, Ishida in front, and Inoue snags the one to his right without asking any questions, and Ichigo's shoulders relax a fraction. Tatsuki, Mizuiro, and Keigo fill in the gaps with only a second's hesitation, but if anybody bar Ichigo had noticed the worry that passed between them then it isn't mentioned.

The whimsical nature of their chatter surrounds Ichigo for the day. Ishida snips and snaps and plays with his glasses when he thinks no one is looking. Inoue prompts a conversation about cake and chocolate and plenty of ingredients that shouldn't ever be mixed together. Chad is a soundless presence at the back, but there are words in his mannerisms and verses in his expressions.

They don't ask him about Soul Society, but Ichigo can hear it in their thoughts.

He takes comfort in knowing they're there, at any rate

(Unlike some thoughts he could mention).

(Not his own).

* * *

It's not Zangetsu's fault. No matter how angry, miserable, and isolated Ichigo feels, he cannot deny that he's stuck in this god-forsaken situation because of _his_ choice, and he needs to pay the consequences for his actions. Zangetsu hadn't wanted to teach him the Final Getsuga Tensho. Zangetsu hadn't wanted to be apart from him. Zangetsu hadn't wanted _this_, yet _this_ is how Ichigo repays him.

"I bet you hate me," the ex-shinigami whispers into his pillow, one single stream of moonlight cutting in through the silence in reply. The curtains shutter in the evening gales – he doesn't think there's been one pleasant day since the war.

"I bet it's raining, wherever you are," he adds, trying to picture the wonky cityscape of his inner world and his soul's pouting expressions in the storm. It almost makes him laugh. Almost.

Over Karakura, the skies are clear and dark.

Inside his bedroom it rains.

* * *

**End Notes**: Feel free to leave a comment if you liked it :)


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